Faces(Tetris III) by Spectrum Holobyte extracted from SEWER DOCS archive by Underdogs - Home of the Underdogs http://underdogs.cjb.net ABOUT FACES... The object of FACES is to assemble chin, mouth, nose, eyes and forehead segments of a face into a complete face that will then be removed from the playing screen. When a perfect face is completed(one that uses all five segments if the same personality), all "blocked" segments of the column the face was on will be removed down to the next "open" segment. If a mixed face (a complete face with segments of different personalities) is completed, the "blocked" segment directly below the completed face will be removed. When a face is completed, it will be transferred to the left hand side of the screen. The game is over if a column of "blocked" segments reaches the top of the playing screen. THE TERMINOLOGY IN FACES... A SEGMENT refers to a portion of a face which is a block containing either a "chin," "lips," "nose," "eyes" or "top." A PERSONALITY refers to a specific face. For example, Joan of Arc is a personality. A PERFECT FACE refers to a completed face that contains all five face segments of only one personality. A MIXED FACE refers to a completed face that contains segments of more than one personality. MOVEMENT refers to the horizontal and vertical manipulation of a pair of face segments as they fall from the top of the game screen. SWAPPING occurs when you transpose the position of the two face segments on game screen. FLIP pair of face segments. The alternate pair will always be the same portion of the face(chin, nose, etc.) but it might be a segment of a different personality. LEVELS OF DIFFICULTY... There are 10 difficulty levels in FACES, numbered 0-9. The higher the difficulty level, the faster the face segments will drop from the top of the screen. Also, the number of different personalities that can appear increases by one every two levels beginning with 4 on level 0 and increasing to 8 on level 9. The different personality categories are listed below: LEVEL CATEGORY # OF PERSONALITIES 0 Universal Faces 4 1 Modern World Figures 4 2 Faces from Art 5 3 Scientists 5 4 Musicians 6 5 Historical Americans 6 6 Literary Figures 8 7 Monsters 7 8 Historical Figures 8 9 American Holidays 8 ADVANCE MODE... Adcance mode gives the expert FACES player an added challenge. When advanced mode is selected, the segments fall much faster then they do in regular play mode. The benefit of playing in advanced mode is that your score for dropping pieces and completing a face is greater then it would be in regular play mode. The benefit of playing in advanced mode is that your score for dropping pieces and completing a face is greater then it would be in regular play mode. Of course, the game is much harder... SCREENS... CONFIGURATION SCREEN The configuration screen allows you to set the options you would like to have for your FACES game. This screen will appear at the conclusion of every game to allow you to adjust your options before playing again. To move and select choices on this menu, use the arrow keys and enter. Following is a brief description of the options available to your from this screen: LEVEL This option allows you to change the level of play for you game. The range is from 0(slowest speed and least number of personalities) to 9(fastest speed and greatest number of personalities). ADVANCED MODE This toggles the advanced mode ON or OFF. CONTROL This toggles your controls to utilize either the KEYBOARD or the JOYSTICK. PLAYERS You can select the number of players(up to 10) using this option. If more then 1 player is selected, all players will be playing in tournament mode. If HEAD 2 HEAD is selected, two players can compete against each other through direct-connect or over a modem. SHOW HIGH SCORES This allows you to view the top ten scores on your FACES game. Press any key on the high score screen to exit. RESET HIGH SCORES This option will allow you to clear the top ten high scores. You will be prompted for confirmation of this action in case you selected it by mistake. LOAD GRAPHICS Use this selection to substitute faces in the game with faces that you have created on you own. UNLOAD GRAPHICS Use this selection to remove faces that you have inserted using the load graphics option. QUIT This quits the program by exiting to DOS. HOW TO PLAY... To complete a face, you must assemble the face segments in order; chin, lips, nose, eyes adn then top. If you place any segment out of order(for example, placing a chin segment on a nose segment) that piece will become "blocked." To complete a perfect face, you need to assemble all five face pieces of only one personality. You can distinquish the different personalities from each other because each has its own separate background color or pattern. If you have a pair of segments straddling a column of pieces, you can move one piece from side to side without moving the other one. In addition, when one of the two pieces comes to rest on a column, you can move and flip the second one on its own. MANIPULATION THE GAME PIECES... Pieces will fall from the top of the screen in pairs, and you can manipulate the movement, flipping and swapping of these face segments either by the keyboard or a joystick. SCORING... Points are accumulated in FACES through a number of different ways. Each time a pair of pieces finishes its movement on either the bottom of the screen or on the top of one of the stacks of blocked pieces you gain points. Unlike TETRIS or WELLTRIS, you do not get any extra points for how far a piece drops. Bonus points are achieved on completion of a face. You obtain more points for creating a perfect face thean for a mixed face. When a face is completed, it is removed from the game screen. The taller a completed face is, the more bonus points you gain. However, you will always get more points for a perfect face than for a taller mixed face. In addition, the higher the level you are playing, the more points you get for e each piece and for completing a fac increases your overall score. ADVANCING TO THE NEXT LEVEL... After completing 10 total faces(any combination of perfect or mixed faces), you will advance to the next difficulty level. You can also press the + key to increase your level. HOW THE GAME ENDS... The game ends whenever you press the ESC key or when a column of blocked pieces reaches the top of the game screen. In tournament mode, a game can end after the set time limit has expired. Play will then pass on to the next player in the tournament. In head-to-head mode, the game ends when one player has a column of blocked pieces reach the top of the screen. After the game ends, press any key to go to the high score screen. HIGH SCORE SCREEN... This screen show the top ten scores for your FACES game. If you have just completed a game where you score was greater than the existing tenth place score, you will be prompted to enter your name for the record books. Your name and score will be saved and then placed on the screen among the existing scores. Note: Some of the lines will be blank until ten games have been played. TOURNAMENT MODE... Up to ten players can complete against each other in tournament mode. After selecting the number of players on the configuration screen, press ENTER to begin entering the participants' names and the time limit for each player's game. Use the arrow keys to increase and decrease the amount of time each player has during their turn. The default time limit is "OFF." If a time limit limit has been selected, the tournament timer will appear in the lower left hand corner of the playing screen throughout each player's game. After pressing SPACEBAR to begin the tournament, the game will prompt Player One to get ready to play. Pressing SPACEBAR again will start the game. Each player will play exactly the same sequence of pices as every other player, and the player with the highest score at the end of the tournament wins. After everyone has finished playing their game, a tournament scoreboard appears listing all of the players and their respective scores. If one of the players has achieved a score high enough to be included on the top ten list, their name will be placed there as well. STRATEGIES... There are quite a few hints and tricks you can utilize in order to play better and achieve a high score. The following is a short list of basic ones you can employ in FACES. Not everything is covered; we can't let all of our secrets out of the bad... Position your pieces before flipping them. Rather than frantically trying to flip, switch and move your pieces all at the same time, try to line up the pieces above stacks where you want them to eventually end up, then flip them. This tactic is somewhat useful in tournament mode as well, but in head-to-head mode you usually don't have the luxury of time. Drop pieces as quickly as possible in tournament mode and head-to-head mode. In regular play mode, you have virtually unlimited time to maneuver and position your pieces, but in tournament mode and head-to-head mode you are racing against the clock. To coin the old adage, "He who hesitates is lost." Nothing could be more true when you have FACES opponents breathing down your neck. Try to make perfect faces, especially in head-to-head mode. While it is always a good idea to create a perfect face, in head-to-head mode perfect faces are essential to winning. Creating a perfect face sends blocked pieces to your opponent which could be the difference in the game. Okay, here are the docs... There were a few things I left out, but they were'nt really important... Have fun! REFERENCE to FACES (TETRIS III) (SCREEN) []===========================================================================[] = | BONUS | |_____Piece____________|_____Identifier________|___Bar__|= = |_______| | |= = | |= = ____________ | |= = | | | |= = | | | |= = | | | |= = | PICTURE | | |= = | | | |= = | | | |= = | | | |= = |____________| | |= = ____________ | |= = | | | |= = | | |  = | | | |= = | PICTURE | | |= = | | | |= = | | | |= = | | | |= = |____________| | |= = ____________ | ______________________________________________________|= = | TIME | | | SCORE | | LEVEL | | PF | | MF | = []===========================================================================[] BONUS This number indicates how many bonus points you received after completing a face. Only the last two completed faces will appear belore this number. PIECE IDENTIFIER BAR This bar indicates what type of segment is falling at the current time(chin, lips, nose, eyes, ortop). The number of the personality it belongs to. Therefore, to complete a perfect face, one would have to place all five pieces with the same number on top of one another. SCORE This shows your current score LEVEL This shows your current difficulty level. PF This shows the current number of perfect faces(PF) that you have completed. MF This shows the current number of mixed faces(MF) that you have completed. TIME This indicates how many minutes are remaining in the game. KEYBOARD MOVEMNT COMMANDS The following commands are to be used when playing FACES via the keyboard: Move the piece(s) left J, 4 or <-- Move the piece(s) right L, 6 or --> Increase drop speed M, SPACEBAR, 2 or \|/ Swap a pair of pieces K or 5 Flip the piece(s) I, 8 or /|\ JOYSTICK MOVEMENT COMMANDS The following diagram shows how to play FACES using a joystick: Flip Piece(s) ³ ________³_______ Swap Piece(s)_|__O ³ | | O ___ | Move Piece(s) LeftÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ (___) ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄMove Piece(s) Right | | |________³_______| ³ ³ Increase Drop Speed STANDARD KEYBOARD COMMANDS The Following keyboard commands can be used throughout FACES, whether you are using a jortick or the keyboard for movement: ESC - Ends a game whether you are playing alone, in tournament mode or against another player head-to-head. P - Pauses the game. When the game is paused, the pair of pieces will disappear from the screen until P is pressed again. These pieces will then reappear in the same place they were before the pause key was pressed. S - Toggles the game sound on and off. + - Either on the top number row or on the numeric keypad will increas the difficulty level of your game by one. Okay, I hope this help... I was half way done with the docs but I decided to type a reference since it would be better... I will type out the rest of the docs if no one else types it... Have fun!